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8 - Mixing Ethnography and Information Technology Data Mining to Visualize Innovation Networks in Global Networked Organizations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 July 2014

By
Julia C. Gluesing ,
Kenneth R. Riopelle  and
James A. Danowski
Edited by
Silvia Domínguez  and
Betina Hollstein
Julia C. Gluesing
Affiliation:
Wayne State University
Kenneth R. Riopelle
Affiliation:
Wayne State University
James A. Danowski
Affiliation:
University of Illinois, Chicago
Silvia Domínguez
Affiliation:
Northeastern University, Boston
Betina Hollstein
Affiliation:
Universität Bremen
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Summary

Introduction

This chapter presents an example of an embedded research design drawing on a case example of empirical research that mixed ethnography and automated data mining to analyze communication networks in global organizations. The goal of the research was to dynamically visualize network structure and content across geographic, organizational, and cultural boundaries. We conducted the study described in this chapter as part of a United States National Science Foundation funded research study to examine how innovations are diffused in global networked organizations. The theory, methods, and tools that helped us conduct our investigation are varied and many, and it will not be possible to do them all justice in this chapter. However, it is our intent to illustrate the value of combining approaches from quantitative, automated data collection and analysis with a grounded ethnographic approach. The quantitative network analysis was given greater weight in the overall study design. However, the ethnographic data were gathered in parallel with automated quantitative data collection and with special emphasis on the triangulation of data that served to both validate and corroborate results. The approach demonstrates how ethnographic methods provide both relevant content and context that can be incorporated into IT-based techniques for data mining and network analysis.

We will demonstrate how the ethnography both validated and grounded the results we found through our analysis of electronic data as well as how the ethnography provided insights that gave our interpretation of the results depth and face validity with the organizational members we studied. We have organized this chapter to provide the reader first with some context for our study by briefly stating the problem and the research question and reviewing the theory and research related to networks, information technology, and diffusion in organizations. Next we discuss the appropriateness of using mixed methods in our study of networks in a global organization. Third, we describe the study procedures and both the quantitative and qualitative methods and results. Finally, we conclude with a discussion of the implications for researchers of innovation networks and practitioners in global networked organizations who manage them and work in these networks.

Type
Chapter
Information
Mixed Methods Social Networks Research
Design and Applications
 , pp. 203 - 234
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2014

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